Why Zuckerberg Wears the Same Thing Every Day
medium.com
medium.com
* Pick a color palette for your shirts. Four is enough. Buy multiples of those.
* Get khakis and jeans. Multiples, again.
All of your shirts will go with all of your pants. In the winter, wear jeans. In the summer, wear khakis. When you decide to cross over, put the other ones away.
Women, however, seem to have much more pressure to consider fashion. Sorry; it's a societal construct. If you don't feel bad about it, exactly the same choices can work for you: pick a blouse in four colors, pick comfortable pants and jeans, be done with it.
As an MtF trans person, the blandness and lack of choice available in male clothing, especially professional male clothing, always felt like a straightjacket to me. The lack of options drove me up a wall, and I was either unenthused about or actively repulsed by the few options that were available. I think I ended up wearing a polo shirt and cargo pants most days, just because I couldn't muster up the effort to give a shit.
Before I transitioned, I crossdressed in private just so I could wear something that I actually liked, even if it was just by myself in my house. Unfortunately, that actually delayed my accepting I was trans... for years, I told myself I was "just a crossdresser" because I thought "Well duh, who doesn't prefer women's clothes over men's? Of course every guy wants to be a girl because being a girl is just obviously better." Of course, that turned out to be a bunch of bupkiss, and cis guys just don't think that way, but it took me so many years to realize that.
I didn't start giving a shit about how I looked in public until I transitioned. Finally, I could wear things that I thought looked good, and I actually had meaningful options.
For example: a UtiliKilt, or actual kilt. Bermuda shorts. A sarong or laplap -- that will cause comment in most of the US, but is perfectly normal in much of the Asian Pacific. A guayabera or a Hawaiian print shirt; vests and sweaters and cardigans and jackets.
Your point about "professional male clothing" is very well-taken, though. Women have many more options.
Have you seen the photos of perfect six packs abdomen on underwear packaging ? Men are slowly getting into the same situation as women.
Of course it's easier to not care at all about all of this when you are a billionaire.
Everyone knows Zukerberg wears grey shirts. Everyone knew that Steve Jobs wore black turtle neck. If they were to change their looks, there would be news articles about it. It would make a lot of noise for nothing.
It's an uniform. They wear it to work.
>> On a trip to Japan in the early 1980s, Jobs asked Sony's chairman Akio Morita why everyone in the company's factories wore uniforms. He told Jobs that after the war, no one had any clothes, and companies like Sony had to give their workers something to wear each day. Over the years, the uniforms developed their own signatures styles, especially at companies such as Sony, and it became a way of bonding workers to the company. "I decided that I wanted that type of bonding for Apple," Jobs recalled.
>> Sony, with its appreciation for style, had gotten the famous designer Issey Miyake to create its uniform. It was a jacket made of rip-stop nylon with sleeves that could unzip to make it a vest. So Jobs called Issey Miyake and asked him to design a vest for Apple, Jobs recalled, "I came back with some samples and told everyone it would great if we would all wear these vests. Oh man, did I get booed off the stage. Everybody hated the idea."
>> In the process, however, he became friends with Miyake and would visit him regularly. He also came to like the idea of having a uniform for himself, both because of its daily convenience (the rationale he claimed) and its ability to convey a signature style. "So I asked Issey to make me some of his black turtlenecks that I liked, and he made me like a hundred of them." Jobs noticed my surprise when he told this story, so he showed them stacked up in the closet. "That's what I wear," he said. "I have enough to last for the rest of my life."
Sounds hip but it's also ridiculous. Each morning I select a necktie from an array of choices. That's not making me less "focused" later on.
So Obama and Zuckerburg don't want to decide what to wear because they don't like making that decision. That's understandable and fine. But it doesn't mean that someone who does make that decision every day (because he actually likes to) has somehow depleted his limited reservoir of decision-making ability.
Similar debate with Soylent. I think a lot of us are just dumbfounded that picking out and eating tasty food is one of the things some people want to give up to have more time and emotional energy for other things. For me, getting to go outside and pick between one of several decent places to eat is one of the things that adds a little bit of happiness to my day, and being pressured to give that up so I can stay at work longer and give even more of my emotional and mental energy to my employer than I do already, seems just mean, small minded and short sighted.
Probably not a coincidence the examples from the articles are all people who have a lot of autonomy and authority in their work life.
That said, I do wear the same pants and shoes daily, so it's really just the shirt that I'm picking. If I had to pick a whole outfit, I think it'd become a burden pretty quickly. I've kept the decision manageable and fun, without coming off as a weirdo to my coworkers.
But I could imagine, if I was as rich as obama or zuckerberg, I could hire someone who learns what I like and make food and clothing choices for me. So I could preventing "spending" creativity AND feel comfy.
It also sounds kind of silly as decisions take only as much brain power as you put into them. Does Zuck eat only one kind of food ever? (otherwise he'd have to choose :O). Does he only have one of everything? Seems unlikely...
It seems much more likely to concern having a signature look (aka Jobs) and to minimize paparazzi since all the pictures look the same and are therefore less valuable.
My take on this:
1. Eating the same meal over and over again and wearing the same clothes every day is a sad and overly utilitarian way to live your life. Eating can be sensual and joyful, picking clothes can be expressive, fun and make you feel good. And in fact you need not miss out on these joys of life to spend time deciding JS framwork to use for your next starup or whatever, because:
2. The theory of willpower/ego depletion is probably wrong and cannot be reproduced (http://www.slate.com/articles/health_and_science/cover_story...).
http://www.hackerfactor.com/blog/index.php?/archives/286-No-...
Anyway, I no longer do it because I just grew tired of the same look, but I have been considering going back because I found the plain white shirts I used to wear turned out to be very high quality and lasted forever. I can’t seem to find a variety of colored shirts with the same longevity. It seems the mix of cotton/polyester and weave is different depending on the color die, but the white shirts with a 60/40 (cotton/poly) were really a good deal in the long run. Coincidentally, I’m wearing one right now :).
That is disgusting.
(I'm kidding of course, just in case anyone else is offended by my lame attempt at humor)
is this a typo?
For me, it's less about the decision making process than it is about feeling confident in what I wear. Before I started building a more uniform-like wardrobe, I had anxiety about whether I looked good, whether my clothes fit well, whether what I was wearing matched. I found that I felt more confident in black.
Now, I know I look good (or at least I feel that I do), and I'm never concerned. Sure, it can at times be tiresome to have the "yes, I wear this all the time" conversation, but for me the tradeoff is worth it: I have zero anxiety in the morning and confidence all day.
I especially like this part:
Eat the same few meals. This is in part due to decision fatigue, but it’s also a powerful dieting tool. For example, Tim Ferris’s Slow Carb Diet suggests eating the same few meals to boost adherence.
Yes, it's also very unhealthy to have a one-sided diet. That's why you're losing weight, your missing our on the nutrients a balanced diet offers.
> Set “key objectives” before bed. I decide what I want to do BEFORE I go to sleep. This saves time in the morning when I want to jump right into doing focused work.
Going to sleep is my disconnect from the world. I do my best to let go of all worries or thoughts and embrace what an active brain really needs: shutting down for a while.
If you go to sleep and know you have tasks the next day, you need to let go of them somehow. One way is to make those decisions now, have a plan or a list of things that will be done tomorrow (even if it's just basic). For instance, look at the calendar and see that you have an 8am appointment the next day. Better to know before going to bed than to realize it as you're halfway asleep and suddenly jolted awake by the memory.
I wonder if aggregating your decisions during a planning session draws less from your daily will power budget than if you made those same decisions throughout the day. Maybe that is a reason to do a planning session closer to bedtime, assuming sleep acts as a reset.
On the other hand, I have a strong morning routine that is largely driven from previous night preparation, and it doesn't bother my ability to sleep at all doing some minor decision-centric preparations right before bed.
I'm aware of studies suggesting a set amount of decisions each day and that does make sense. However I don't think removing the choice of what you're wearing (and other menial decisions) measurably impacts your performance. It's a symptom of your ambition and drive for efficiency.
I recently went to a startup weekend. A group of young men started wearing the same shirts each day after reading the Zuck story. I think that is missing the point entirely.
> Here’s Obama in a Vanity Fair article:
>> “I’m trying to pare down decisions. I don’t want to make decisions about what I’m eating or wearing. Because I have too many other decisions to make.”
The article goes into detail on how to setup a full-blown plan of cutting down decision count. I think they missed the point entirely.
http://nymag.com/scienceofus/2016/03/psychologys-favorite-th...
"Our daily willpower is limited"
I love variety in my food, and cooking is my "relaxation" time every day. I would (and do) get depressed eating even the same thing for lunch every day. Similarly, I like wandering the aisles for the grocery story (when I go—my wife does most of the shopping) to find interesting ingredients that inspire food ideas.
Oh by the way, I do want to chose. Because there are some days where I want to dress down, some days up, because I do have stuff after work to attend (sometimes). Some days are cold, some are hot (and I don't take an air-conditioned car from an air-conditioned house to an air-conditioned office)
Same thing with having lunch.
I'd guess the effects of the use of will power can be additive or compounded, like choosing not to have to choose clothes.
I found that, not only am I not worrying about what to wear in the mornings and focusing more on important problems, I'm more confident around others. I forgot how influenced our wardrobe choices are by our peers. I used to dress while dwelling in the future, which is a recipe for anxiety. Now, I put on the same thing every morning, on autopilot, and think about a problem I'm trying to solve.
It's really working great for me.